Salt just works. No other single food additive can be said to have a use in nearly all prepared dishes. Sensient’s 2013 IFT Food Expo soup prototypes featuring SensaSalt, a line of custom-formulated flavor enhancers and salt replacers for specific savory applications, are included as part of the article’s discussion of reduced-sodium technologies. Also featured are Sensient’s application-specific formulas that address sodium reduction including Sensasalt Vegetable, Sensasalt Beef and Sensasalt Bakery.

Baked goods have a mixed reputation. To some, they’re carb- and fat-laden gluten bombs; to others, they’re the embodiment of hearth-centered wholesomeness. Of course, to us in the food industry, they’re a little bit of both. All it takes to shunt them toward the wholesome latter is some formulation fine-tuning. Sensient Flavors’ marketing manager Jean Shieh explains how salt controls fermentation in yeast-leavened breads.

When the cold and flu season strikes, a glass of orange juice is many consumers’ solution to getting their daily dose of vitamin C to help strengthen their immune systems. Sensient Flavors’ director of beverage research and development Bill Smith discusses other beverage formats and the formulation challenges they pose.

Parents may try to fill their kids with healthy drinks, but if kids don’t like them, they may not drink them and thus run the risk of insufficient fluids for good health. On the other hand, sometimes the drinks kids choose are chock-full of ingredients that parents object to and, in excess, might actually create health problems. Sensient Flavors’ consumer insights manager Bridget Schigoda and director of beverage research and development Bill Smith discuss kids’ beverage flavor preferences.

In what’s been called the “clean label” trend, consumers increasingly are seeking out products with a short list of minimally processed ingredients and typically free of artificial sweeteners, flavors, colors and preservatives. As beverage makers try to keep up with this consumer demand, this trend has, in turn, generated strong growth for natural colors typically sourced from fruit and vegetable extracts, as opposed to synthetic colors.

How food looks may be a major deciding factor whether or not a consumer will try the product. In order to increase the visual appeal, food and beverage designers use color additives to enhance their products. But consumers are also becoming more interested in the ingredients that make up these foods and beverages, forcing manufacturers to look at alternative, natural options for colorants. This Digital Pulse Issue delves into how products with color are created and kept consistent from the processing to the time it lands on the shelf.

As an initial cue to flavor, only scent trumps color in attracting humans to food. Our expectations about how items should taste are based on hue, saturation, brightness and shade, and anomalies, such as coloring a lemon drop blue, can be unsettling.

The demand for healthy foods and beverages at retail runs the gamut: consumers want less sodium, fat, calories, and added sugar; enhanced nutrient profiles benefiting from vitamins, minerals, and other nutraceuticals; and all natural labels free of artificial ingredients. There’s just one problem: sugar substitutes and added nutrients often bring with them a strong bitter taste profile that’s off-putting for many consumers, and most masking agents on the market can’t meet all natural demands.

Sensient Flavors has developed new beverage concepts that it says respond to rising demand for food and drink that affects and balances our emotional states in a ‘gentle and natural’ way. Emphasizing that health and wellness benefits need not only be physical (or nutritional), the company believes that the emotional influence of foods and drinks is a key trend.

Flavour and fragrance manufacturer Sensient Flavors has developed four new product ranges in response to rising demand for products that influence and balance our emotional state in a gentle and natural way, that it claims will support drinks manufacturers in the creation of “mood balancing” products.

Convenience is king. From drive-through drugstores to mail-order
dry-cleaning, today’s consumers are continually looking for—and finding—
ways to lighten their load of everyday tasks and chores. It may not be
surprising then that people are also applying this principle to the way they feed themselves.

A February announcement from Pittsburgh's H.J. Heinz Co. that it was rolling out Heinz Tomato Ketchup Blended with Sriracha Flavor got a lot of play in the consumer press, as does anything of late having to do with sriracha. And this was not the first time Heinz has put a new spin on the ubiquitous condiment that is a keystone of its product portfolio.

Key suppliers offer their thoughts on the trends to watch in the soft drinks sector. Where are the latest opportunities in functional beverages and which active ingredients should we be looking out for?

With the click of a button, consumers can start a petition, rally the troops and storm the proverbial steps of major food and beverage companies and demand product reformulation. Think of Gatorade and its disdained emulsifier, brominated vegetable oil (BVO); or Starbucks and its "buggy" coloring, chochineal. Food and beverage activists are everywhere - online, in the media and standing next to you in the grocery line. They're tired of bottlenecked beverage labels with chemical-sounding ingredients, too many ingredients or just the wrong ingredients, according to them.